Richmond Hill outlasts Windsor in wild OT finish

With the game tied in the closing seconds of the first overtime period, senior point guard Kameron Myers pulled down a rebound off a missed shot and heaved the ball down court to a wide-open Daniel Wilder, who calmly laid it in off the glass as the final ticks ran off the clock, giving the Wildcats a 51-49 Region 3-AAAAA win over the Knights.

It was a wild, back-and-forth affair featuring several lead changes and went into extra time after Windsor’s Tremayne Trawick knocked down a 10-foot jumper with 3 seconds remaining in regulation to knot things up at 45.

The Knights led 49-46 with just over a minute to go in the OT period, but Wildcat forward Jeremiah Hill stole the ball, dribbled to the far left corner and drilled a 3-pointer to tie it back up.

Windsor threw the ball out of bounds on the ensuing possession — handing the ball back to the Wildcats with 45.7 seconds left — but came up with a steal off a deflection on Richmond Hill’s next drive. Then a missed shot fell into the hands of Myers, who hit Wilder for the game-winner.

“The guys on our team came up with a slogan at the beginning of the year — ‘unity in adversity’ — and I don’t think there’s any better example of a team coming together when they faced plenty of adversity throughout the night,” Richmond Hill coach Bill Henderson said. “We made some mistakes that could have cost us the game and caused us to fold up, but our guys stuck with it and made the plays when they needed to.”

The Wildcats (6-10 overall, 3-4 region) started out hot with an 8-0 run and 11-3 early lead, sparked by a pair of bombs by Wilder and Hill and a short basket by Nick Fitzgerald. But the Knights (6-10, 3-4) went on a 10-0 run of their own to grab their first lead of the game.

After falling behind again 18-15 at halftime, Windsor hit its stride in the third quarter with a 21-10 run to go up by as many as eight points.

Wilder put the Wildcats back ahead 39-38 with 3:01 left on a 3-pointer, and Fitzgerald converted a three-point play to push the lead to 42-38. Windsor’s Kwamen Habersham tied it once more on a follow-up shot to make it 43-43 with 16 seconds left. Wilder was fouled on the next possession and hit both freebies to give the Wildcats a 45-43 advantage with just eight seconds left.

Hill led all scorers with 16 points, while Wilder had 14 and Fitzgerald added 13.

The Knights were led by Glen Sams and Davell Collins, who had 12 apiece.